I had tor working on FreeBSD a few months back, it works, but it was so slow that I found it not usuable for web browsing...

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"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." -Philip K. Dick

I'm using Tor and Privoxy. Tor isn't about performance and usability, it's about your privacy. If you want to anonymize certain data on your Internet journey then this is the proper tool. Web 2.0 applications are a no-go with Tor, however e.g. Jabber with Tor (via Socks) is possible too. So in the end it depends on your daily use and how much you're interested in securing your privacy.

my first experience with it is quite good. i did not experience any performance issues by now.
it works quite good for me. now i need to find out how to tell tor (shell command) to get new ip immediately.
besides i need to know how to keep ip, if it works good for me.

And what happens if the KGB or CIA sponsors and administers, using a straw man, a TOR exit node ? How can you be sure that this is not the case?

So what? It doesn't matter, they must have control over a huge share of the net to do forensics via time-based analysis to get a hint about you. The exitnode itself doesn't have a clue about the source, so your anonymity is 'secure', but your data isn't. But which data you submit is up to you (and it can compromise your anonymity). In terms of Jabber over Tor I'm using Gpg or OTR encryption - so anybody can have a look at it, but the don't know the decrypted content and the source of the transmission.

If you use GPG they have a pretty good idea who you are by your email address. GPG and TOR do NOT go together.

Of course it's possible (Jabber with GPG or OTR encryption plus Tor) - I'm using it. And you can use OTR (deniable) if you have a personal email address. One hint for the latter, it's possible to use a freemailer like Gmail and without giving Google your personal data.

Btw. it doesn't matter for Tor which data you're transmitting - it can be a SSH session, a GPG or OTR encrypted XMPP transmission etc. pp.

Some further information, because I see some misconception in your saying: